Williamsburg radiologist has designed a travel pillow; Kickstarter funding deadline is July 25

Almost four years ago Ravi Shamaiengar, a radiologist with Tidewater Diagnostic Imaging who practices at Williamsburg Regional Medical Center, started work on designing a better travel pillow. A frequent traveler who suffers from neck pain, he found that only the large, expensive pillows worked for him.

Shamaiengar wanted something lighter and more portable that would still provide the necessary support. "It's become a passion," he said this week, after raising just over half the $40,000 he needs to start manufacturing the patent-pending NapAnywhere, a disc with cut-outs that weighs 8 ounces but is strong enough to support the head.

After spending more than $30,000 of his own funds to fine-tune the design, using an engineering firm in Arizona, Shamaiengar (pronounced Sha-mine-gar) turned to the crowd-funding offered through www.kickstarter.com. The site gives would-be entrepreneurs 30 days to raise their goal funds. It also helps them gauge public interest in their product. At this writing more than 400 backers had signed up, with contributions starting at a dollar.

NapAnywhere contributors are running at 13 percent of those who look at his product online, he said, which is much higher than the usual 6 percent. He has also filled more than 400 pre-orders for the neck-support, which will retail for between $39 and $49, putting it in the mid-range of the competition. (Contributions under $30 go to the cause; more than that, and you receive a NapAnywhere neck-support pillow.) Even if he doesn't meet the requisite goal by the July 25 Kickstarter deadline, Shamaiengar will proceed with a planned production start in September. The most difficult part of the process was finding a manufacturer, he said, and he has finally settled on one in Hong Kong after several domestic manufacturers gave up.

Shamaiengar experimented with various styles, shapes and materials. The end result is "a thin disk ... the top part of the device forms a cantilevered shelf which extends along your jaw, from your chin to the back of your head. You can form the supportive surface to comfortably cradle your head. Similarly, you curve the bottom part over your shoulder." The fabrics are antimicrobial. "very eco-friendly," and wipe clean; it comes in two neck sizes and several colors and can be folded into a backpack. Last year, the NapAnywhere won "Innovator of the Year" award at the 2012 Virginia Inventors Forum Expo, a group of business leaders and inventors.

"It's a fun hobby," said Shamaiengar, who has spent hundreds of hours on the project. "It's like a passion. I was just trying to develop something for myself."